Missing Carla

It's possible I am pushing through solid rock

In flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;

I am such a long way in I see no way through,

and no space: everything is close to my face,

and everything close to my face is stone.

I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief

so this massive darkness makes me small.

You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:

then your great transforming will happen to me,

and my great grief cry will happen to you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

My sister Carla died.

No matter how many times I speak them, I can’t make that combination of words make sense. I know she is gone. It’s been over a month since she slipped into a coma, finally letting go three days later while surrounded by loved ones. I understand what the words mean. I said goodbye over Skype knowing that a few hours later she would be gone, I sat through the memorial when we all said and sang our goodbyes, I wandered through her house after most of the furniture had been moved out and only a few piles of things sat in the corners of the empty rooms. I know that it is true. My sister Carla died. Still, something in me just can’t comprehend…

Grief comes like a punch in the gut. "I thought I was prepared for this," my father said, fighting through his tears to tell me the news, barely five minutes old. I sat on the other side of the phone line, on the other side of the country, feeling the wind being knocked out of me, even though I had known the reason for this call the moment the phone rang. Even though I, too, thought I'd prepared for this. For two and a half years and one of the longest weekends of my life I prepared. And then came my father's call...

Rilke's image for grief is "pushing through solid rock," as though one were deep in the earth's core trying to push up into the light. It is a place where there is "no space" and "everything is close to my face." Claustrophobic. Immobile. Stuck. For me, grief is more like a fog or a cloud. I can't shake the feeling that I'm forgetting something or missing something. Like Rilke, "I am such a long way in I see no way through."

. . .

I wrote the above paragraphs a month ago. They took weeks to write. I could only manage a few sentences at a time and then I'd have to stop. It's been almost two months now since Carla died. That's the equivalent of about five minutes in grief time. The feelings are not so raw as they were a few weeks ago, but the pain is still very new. My feelings have hardened somewhat, less like a fog now, more like Rilke's stone.

I understand Rilke's cry to God when he says, "You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in." I have always found comfort and pleasure in the practice of prayer and meditation. For me, religion has been a source of vitality. Like art, it is a way of making sense of the world, of being more alive to the world. And, like art, it is a discipline. It is hard work. In the face of grief, it is even harder. I still continue my regular practice of prayer, but it seems like I am simply going through the motions. I feel like a guy holding someone else's place in a long supermarket line that isn't moving. I'm just waiting and waiting, hoping to move forward soon. And so, like Rilke, I long for God to make his presence known. I need God to do all the heavy lifting right now. I need to know that there is meaning in the world, despite all the pain and sadness.

After the death of his wife, C.S. Lewis wrote a book called A Grief Observed. In that book he says, "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand." The easy pieties of "She's in a better place" just won't do. I don't want to feel okay that Carla is gone. I don't want to "get back to normal" and "feel good." Religion as an easy consolation would only be another form of repression. If anything, I believe that the hard work of religion means to feel more, not less. It means to look directly at difficult and painful realities and be transformed by them. Even so, I wish it didn't have to hurt so goddamn much.

Somewhere inside me I can sense that I am being changed by this grief. It has to be so. After Carla's death, how could I ever be the same? I imagine that grief is God's way of working some mysterious alchemy in me. I can feel that that is true as I write it, and yet I'm not sure I believe it. Does that sound like a contradiction? Everything about grief is contradictory. This makes sense considering that the pain I feel at Carla's passing is in direct proportion to the love I had, and have, for her. And so I find I need God, but at the same time, I want nothing to do with him. I feel empty and desolate, and yet grief is the one place right now where I feel most fully alive. I want this pain to end, but it feels awful when I do feel better, like a kind of betrayal. I know that Carla is gone, but something in me will not believe it and acts and reacts as if she is still alive. "Like a phantom limb," my therapist said. "Like a phantom limb," I agreed.

The question, of course, is, if I am being changed, what kind of change will it be? Will I shut down, repress my feelings, become colder, encased in the rock? Or will I find a new way into life, a new aliveness somehow birthed by this time of darkness? I honestly can't say right now how things will go -- I feel both of these possibilities within me everyday. But if I am going to get through this, even if I don't yet believe it, I have to have faith that new life can come out of this painful experience. I have always believed that we must be transformed by life, but you have to live through what is and not wish only for what you'd prefer life to be. And so all I can do right now is trust that by not resisting or denying this pain I can, by living through it, return to life renewed.

Shortly before her death, Carla received a package of homemade butterflies made by the children of the playgroup that Allison leads, and that my kids attend. Carla wrote this thank you note to the children, which they received the day after she died:

I was so excited to receive all of the butterflies you made me. I have a picture of them hanging in a fig tree in my backyard. I love butterflies because they are beautiful, but it takes a long time for them to change and a lot of hard work. It makes me feel like anybody can be beautiful if they work hard and are patient and kind, like butterflies. I have a bed in my backyard and I lie under an umbrella and look at your pretty presents. Thank you so much First Parish Playgroup.

Love, Carla (Annabel and Atticus' Auntie Carla)

I hope that through all this I may become a butterfly. I know that is what Carla would want. But she is right, becoming a butterfly is hard work. Right now, I am in the chrysalis stage -- hardly moving, dissolving, all the old forms breaking down, not sure if I'll ever emerge.

At the memorial, towards the end, Atticus said, "Why is this such a long funeral?" At the time, I didn't know what to say beyond, "It'll be over soon." Afterwards, I told Carla's good friend, Gina, about Atticus' remark. Her answer was brilliant and quick. Carla quick. "That's a great question," she said, "because the answer is: It was so long because Carla was loved so much!"

I know that because of the love I have for Carla, and because I miss her so damn much, working through the chrysalis of grief will be a long, hard process. My answer to Atticus was wrong -- it won't be over soon. I hope that I can honor this process, stay open even through the pain, the dislocation, and the uncertainty about where this all leads. I hope that I can return to the fullness of life, embracing it with the kind of joy and delight that Carla always did.

And I hope that with hard work and patience, one day I, too, can be beautiful.

Like Carla was beautiful.

Like she knew we all could be.

Stronger Than Death

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. . . As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. (Luke 24:13-16; 28-31)

Relationships change us. From the beginning of our lives, key aspects of our personality—the way we experience ourselves and the world around us—are shaped by our primary relationships. If, as infants, we experience secure and stable attachments with our caregivers, we will develop a sense that the world is trustworthy and safe. If, on the other hand, our first relationships are unstable or otherwise traumatic, our ability to navigate the vicissitudes of life will be greatly impaired. Recent studies have shown that early healthy attachments lead to such things as greater self-esteem, greater life satisfaction, and a more robust immune system.

In the most fundamental of ways, relationships change us.

Later, as our worlds expand beyond the circle of family, our connections with others invite us to discover and develop wider dimensions to our personality. But this process of development is not something that is strictly an internal and individual affair. C.G. Jung states, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” This is the basic premise of psychotherapy, that change is effected by relationship.

Religion, too, teaches that relationships can be transformative, particularly one’s relationship with God. All religions place central importance on the development of compassion, but it is Christianity, with its doctrine of the Trinity, that seems unique in asserting that relationship is not just something enjoined by God, it is the very nature of God. Referring to the idea of the Trinity, Huston Smith tells us, “If love is not just one of God’s attributes but his very essence—and it may be Christianity’s distinctive mission in history to claim just that—at no point could God have been truly God without being involved in relationship.” Looking closely at the story, quoted above, of Jesus talking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, there is a hint that relationship is also an important factor in the mystery of resurrection.

I can’t really speak to the theological understanding of resurrection as it is beyond the scope of my knowledge. And as for the spiritual reality of a life beyond this one, well, that is something that surpasses human knowing. It has always seemed likely to me that there is an existence that continues past this life, and I share Mary Oliver’s attitude in her poem, When Death Comes, when she says:

“I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”

My personal belief is that death and resurrection are synonyms. Our death is an end on this plane of existence, but it is also an opening to a new and unknowable existence on some other level. A short while back, Carla woke and discovered that she had a sheet wrapped around her and could not move. ALS had left her too weak to free herself and too weak call for help. In order to avoid panic she imagined her body as a sandbag that she dropped off the side of a hot-air balloon. This allowed her to shift out of being identified with her trapped body and to find refuge in her free and soaring imagination. I believe our resurrection is like this, we let go of the body and become all soaring imagination. Or, maybe, it is like an actor walking off stage. We take off the costume and makeup of this character we’ve been playing and remember the wider, more complete personality that we’ve always been.

One of the stories told in the Christian tradition during the Easter season is the appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The two disciples are walking in a state of grief, discussing Jesus’ execution, when they are joined by a stranger. They invite the stranger to join them for dinner and when he blesses and breaks the bread, they suddenly recognize that it is Jesus. As soon as they recognize him, Jesus disappears.

The word ‘companion’ is made from the words com- ‘with’ and panis ‘bread.’ To break bread with someone is to be in relationship with them. In this story, as I noted above, resurrection and relationship are joined together. In fact, in many of the post-resurrection stories, Jesus visits his disciples—his companions—and eats with them. This pairing of resurrection and relationship suggests one way to understand the mystery of life beyond this life. That is, we are most alive in this world and the next where we generate the most love, both given and received.

This, to me, speaks to the psychological dimension of resurrection. Relationships change us. More than this. Who we are is to a large part determined by our interactions with others, good and bad. We are shaped by the successes and failures of love. Relationships not only change us, they create us. It is not too much, I believe, to say that the primary place of relationships in our lives means that we are not confined to our personal, separate selves. We are not merely our egos. We are what happens in the space between two (or more) people.

Certainly, we continue to live on in the memories of those we have loved and those who have loved us. But I am suggesting that we live on in more than just memories. If we are made up of our relationships, then in every person we have met and loved some part of our being has been planted . We live not only in the memories of another, but in his or her very being. Maybe those who are left behind are like pieces in a great puzzle of love. When two or more of the people who have loved us in this life meet again after we are gone, the pieces come together and, in that moment, we are resurrected, we are alive again. We are, in a sense, put back together in those meetings. We are re-membered.

And this to me is where the psychological dimension of resurrection opens out into the spiritual dimension. Maybe our spiritual existence is built up of the love we have generated in the world. The more love we have known, the more our spirit takes on a substantial existence able to become a living presence long after we have released the ballast that is our mortal body. Life ends. Things decay. Even memories fade. Love never dies.

“Love,” teaches Paul Tillich, — and I believe him with all my heart — “is stronger than death.”

Gethsemane

“They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’ Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:32-42)


Easter Sunday is the day on the Christian calendar that celebrates the joy and mystery Christ’s resurrection. That is preceded, however, by a week-long remembrance of Jesus’ suffering and death, known as Holy Week. Before the promise of new life as pictured in the resurrection, and ritually commemorated by many—mostly unconsciously—with Easter egg hunts and bunnies and baby chicks, there is an extended meditation on the fact of suffering and death in human life. This juxtaposition is essential. One cannot fully experience the meaning of the resurrection until they have experienced the full impact of sorrow and loss.

The story of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is, for me, one of the most poignant and moving of the whole of the gospel. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” It tells the story of a man who not only suffered physically, but was in emotional agony as well. Jesus prays in words every human being has spoken or thought at some point: “Please, don’t make me have to go through this. Spare me from this.” If there is truth in the Christian message, it is here in this story that teaches that God gets it. God knows the suffering and the sorrows that are a part of every human existence because he has felt them deeply himself.

My four year old daughter recently learned the Easter story and has begun to ask about dying. “But nobody in our family is ever going to die!,” she pleaded with me through tears. “Father, take this cup from me.” Every day as I watch my children grow up, my heart breaks a little. Every time they learn something new, some sweet, earlier version of them is gone forever. I glory in their growth, but I’m sad at the loss of little things, like the mispronunciation of a word—‘waboo’ becomes ‘water’ and all of sudden my little girl is no longer a baby. When my daughter asked about death, I felt I'd never be able to put my heart back together again.

I cannot save my daughter from the reality of death, as much as I wish I could. All I can do is hold her close, tell her I love her, and pray that my love is a reality that will outlast my body, that will cling close to her and to all the people that I love, long after I am gone. And I cannot save myself from the reality of death. Too soon (it’s always too soon), people that I love will die. It is a thought that is, at times, more than I can bear. “Abba, Father, take this cup from me.”

When things are more than I can bear, I turn to poems and stories. The stories that the Great Religions tell I have found to be helpful, like the one of Jesus in Gethsemane. Here is a poem by Mary Oliver that, I believe, gets it exactly right:


In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.